yard_sale raze it's simpler when it isn't yours. when what's being sold is someone else's. when you can just show up and smile at the surprise of good people not meeting a bunch of strangers who want to lowball them to death. you can see them having a successful yard sale, unloading a lot of things they want to be rid of before a move without feeling like they're being ripped off. you can find some cassettes you're bewildered anyone would want to get rid of, even if they don't have the means to play the tapes anymore. "come on pilgrim". "achtung baby". "fear of music", for christ's sake. "heaven" is still terrifying all these years later. there's something queasy in there. the numb horror of the ideal afterlife turning out to be nothing but a looped party, the music never changing, the cinematic kiss repeating until it's stripped of all meaning. purity as a kind of death beyond death. you can get a little rubber toy bat for free, for fun. he has red eyes and green nostrils. he looks too friendly to be a vampire bat. you can name him batty, because it's not a time to be creative. it's a time to regress. and you can meet a friendly street cat and try out that trick you taught yourself. the one where you hold out your hand and let him come to you. let him smell you and decide for himself how close he wants to get. that way if he lets you in, it'll mean something, and there'll be something there that's maybe a bit like trust. 160625 ... raze (the nostrils are yellow. not green. sorry, batty. still getting used to having you around.) 160625 ... epitome of incomprehensibility :) I had a yard sale too yesterday. Well, my parents did. I was helping set things up, put up signs, sit under an umbrella writing dialogue for another unfinished novel, etc. It's fun to find things you're excited about and that other people don't want. I got five tapes of Dvorak symphonies for a dollar at a garage sale once. 160626 what's it to you? who go blather from